Journal of Vacation Marketing

With more and more destinations relying on repeat travelers, the inclination of tourists to revisit some destinations has become a significant topic of study. Therefore, the reasons for travelers’ revisits have been addressed in many research studies. These studies have determined several factors of the revisit inclination, such as satisfaction, destination image, and perceived quality. However, in most of the previous studies about the relationships among the destination image and tourists’ satisfaction, as well as their behavioral intentions to the destination, the moderating variables were not considered. Consequently, we analyzed the moderator effects of certain characteristics of different travel arrangements on the theoretical relationship among the destination image, tourists’ satisfaction, and their behavioral intentions to the destination. This article first identifies the similarities and differences among these two types of Chinese outbound travelers in terms of their demographic and trip characteristics. It then confirms that these two types of travelers differ in terms of the relationships among perceived destination images, satisfaction level, and future behavioral intentions using an invariance test of structural model. According to the multiple group cause-and-effect analysis, the results show that travel arrangement can largely affect either the relations between destination image and tourists’ satisfaction or their behavioral intentions. Moreover, the relationship between either destination image and tourists’ satisfaction or their behavioral intentions is generally stronger for independent visitors. Finally, the influences are discussed from both theoretical and practical perspective.

Recent changes in the aviation industry and in the expectations of travellers have begun to alter the way we approach our understanding, and thus the segmentation, of airport passengers. The key to successful segmentation of any population lies in the selection of the criteria on which the partitions are based. Increasingly, the basic criteria used to segment passengers (purpose of trip and frequency of travel) no longer provide adequate insights into the passenger experience. In this article, we propose a new model for passenger segmentation based on the passenger core value, time. The results are based on qualitative research conducted in situ at Brisbane International Terminal during 2012–2013.

Based on our research, a relationship between time sensitivity and degree of passenger engagement was identified. This relationship was used as the basis for a new passenger segmentation model, namely, airport enthusiast (engaged and non-time sensitive), time filler (non-engaged and non-time sensitive), efficiency lover (non-engaged and time sensitive) and efficient enthusiast (engaged and time sensitive).

The outcomes of this research extend the theoretical knowledge about passenger experience in the terminal environment. These new insights can ultimately be used to optimize the allocation of space for future terminal planning and design.

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the influence of Bollywood movies on destination image, tourist activity, and purchasing behaviors of Indian viewers. Surveys were administered in a face-to-face format in New Delhi, India, to a convenience sample of over 600 respondents. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were employed to test the hypotheses and explore causal relationships. Findings identified a profile of Bollywood movies viewers, sources of information used to determine destination choice, and the level of involvement among viewers in foreign travel. Additionally, this study explored the relationships between Bollywood movies and tourist motivations and the propensity to participate in activities featured. Findings indicated that engagement in Bollywood movies has a positive impact on both hedonic and utilitarian involvement factors and that utilitarian involvement positively impacts destination awareness. Furthermore, destination awareness has a positive impact on tourist activity but not consumption behaviors at a destination. However, activity behavior does positively influence tourist consumption behavior.

This study examines the causal relationship between consumers’ price fairness perceptions and behavioral intentions in the context of online hotel bookings. Using a cross-sectional sample of 506 customers of a budget hotel chain in the United Kingdom, structural equation modeling (using the partial least squares approach), multigroup t-test, and permutation tests were conducted to (1) validate the structural model where price fairness is the exogenous variable and behavioral intention is the endogenous variable and (2) examine whether the causal model is invariant (equivalent) across customers from different market segments—including, first-time and repeat customers, leisure, and business travelers. Results from the analysis supported a significant, direct relationship between customers’ perceptions of price fairness and behavioral intentions. The results of the multigroup test and permutation tests further indicated that first-time leisure customers are more sensitive to dynamic pricing practices and tend to perceive these practices as unfair. Thus, the budget hotel chain may want to be very cautious with new customers who are not familiar with this pricing practice.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of Slow Food festival attributes on visitors’ overall experience, their satisfaction level and revisit intention. A total of 209 usable questionnaires were collected from visitors at Mold Slow Food festival, and exploratory factor analysis was conducted using analysis of moment structures version 19.0. A theoretical model representing the relationships among festival attribute qualities, experience quality, satisfaction level and revisit intention is examined using path analysis. With the addition of new paths from programmes to satisfaction and from food and other amenities to satisfaction, a revised theoretical model emerged. It indicated that all three festival attribute qualities (programmes, food and other amenities and entertainment) have direct impacts on the visitors’ overall experience and satisfaction; however, only the quality of food and other amenities contributed directly to revisit intention of the Slow Food festival.

Marketers increasingly try to make marketing messages reach and ‘infect’ social media users, who subsequently share the message with yet other users, thereby ‘infecting’ additional users and spreading the message like a virus – processes often defined as viral marketing. However, what exactly happens to marketing messages when they ‘go viral’ has not received much attention, and the intention of this article is to take a closer look at what happens to marketing messages when social media users comment on and co-create these messages. Drawing on one particular case, that is, the ‘do it for Denmark’ commercial, the article suggests that what happens is not simply that marketers’ original message spreads like a virus. Instead, a diverse set of discourses are constructed and shared as the marketing message goes viral. The contention of this article is that ‘uncontrollability’ of viral processes creates unforeseeable associations and meanings that may have little to do with the original message and meanings – in the present case changing meanings from ‘do it for Denmark’ to ‘do it to Denmark’. Therefore, tourism marketers need to better understand the complexity of viral processes and how co-creation of viral messages may fundamentally transform and transcend the original message.